News, Reviews- everything about stand up paddle surfing... get out and poach some!

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Watchin' the weather: Point run in Peril!

Weatherman says there's wind and rain coming at us for tomorrow (Monday 1-21) which perfectly screws up our plans to paddle out to the point. Everything's weather dependent here so we'll see what happens (translation: Call the surf phone- I'll have her on by 7am). Of course, the first check is always down the street, maybe zip over to check another sandbar and by 7:30am I'll have a good idea of what's going to happen. Alternative plan is to run up the coast to the one spot in SD that can turn a stormy day into a clean offshore paddle session. We'll see.

Super Cool: Got a chance to paddle Tex's 10'0 x 29" Ron House. I have to say, that's a nice board. The board's made for a bigger guy (Tex ain't tiny) but it's no dog- that thing surf very, very nicely. I was really surprised by the fin set up: Ron House runs a thruster set up with really small fins. These looked to be right off of a 6'3" shortboard. I did my best to try to spin it out off the bottom and on an open face cutback and I couldn't do it! I know other guys have mentioned using much smaller fins, I was very skeptical of that- I'm not anymore. I immediately went back and switched my middle fin to a 7"er (although I'm keeping my regular fin in the truck... just in case) can't wait to try the Mahi 2 out with a much smaller center fin.

I'm beginning to realize that there's a lot to learn about these boards. Conventional wisdom kind of gets thrown right out the window. What works on one stand up board might not work on another- cool stuff and super fun to play around with.

Camera Grom just sent me his cut of yesterday's footage, be sure to check it out (and if you're a photo slut- like me- toss the boy a buck or two). I like his clip better- the kid's got a good eye for editing. Now here's my challenge for you guys out there- make a clip, post it on youtube, let's see some hot surfin'!!! I'm tired of only seeing my clips- I want to see what else is going on- inspire me!

4 comments:

Regarding the Ron House board you surfed. Try and put those small thruster fins on any other SUP board and it wont work. I tried on my BlueLine SUP boards and they spun out like crazy. Ron is the MAN and he has it down! I have two old Ron House SUP boards and they rip. The tails are razor thin and narrow.

man stupid storm I was itching to get wet this morning, but I guess it was just hit and miss. Oh well driving home holding that strap to the rack on my car murdered my hand I'm going to save up and get a rack for that small Toyota I was telling you about, know any good places?

Hey Jim-I was pretty amazed at how small those fins were. I did bump my middle fin down to a seven incher and you're right- just not the same feel- so back up to an 8" fin for me. Funny they change the feel of the board so much. Those boards you made look pretty sweet!